In Lenin’s footsteps: a journey to Haparanda, Sweden

Tight lines: traditional fishing on the Tornio River, across the border from Haparanda.
Photograph: Alamy

The road to Haparanda in Sweden winds through elk country. Where there are clearings in the birch and pine the view is snowy tundra, empty as the moon. It is a bus route, but it could be heading to the rim of the world, an impression that is only reinforced, as the bus I’m on begins to slow, by the appearance of the terminal itself. Round, sleek and built of glass and steel, it hovers in the mud and snowdrifts like a spaceship making an unscheduled call. High on its flank, bold lettering announces that it serves the twin towns of Haparanda-Tornio, one here in Sweden and the other in Finland.

The border, on an island just outside the shopping mall, is 50 yards away. Marked by an artificial stream, it would be obvious, but for the ice.

Locals are fond of their Ikea, the planet’s northern-most blue box, built to attract Russians and Finns

The midnight sun in summer must be magical here, and if I had arrived in February I might have seen the Northern Lights. But the timing was not my choice; I had to follow someone else. In April 1917, at the height of the first world war, the Bolshevik leader, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, came through here on his way from Switzerland to Petrograd, the capital of revolutionary Russia.

It was the most momentous rail journey in history, the first step on the road to Soviet power, and Lenin completed it in eight days. A hundred years on, and sticking exactly to his schedule, I boarded my first train in Zurich five days ago.

Now there is no one else in sight and I am grateful for my thickest woolly hat.

The ghost of Lenin must still walk, for this could be a 1980s Russian suburb, vintage Soviet townscape. As I hand him my passport, the hostel-keeper positively snarls. “Sheeps?” he blusters. “You want sheeps?” I look blank, so he tries again, this time adding saliva for emphasis. “Sheeps…cheaps… BED cheaps?”

Sheer panic helps me grasp the point (I’m going to have to hire my sheets), but then I glimpse a notice in Cyrillic script about the hefty fines for smoking here. I switch into Russian myself, inducing an immediate transformation in my host. Like me, he lived in Moscow years ago; like Moscow’s, this cold landscape turns out to conceal a warm, generous heart.

Still, do not come here for the food. The speciality is reindeer steak; rye bread may be a safer bet. At breakfast, the hostel-keeper is quick to swoop on my plastic-wrapped croissant. “I’m upgrading you,” he explains, handing me an identical package. “This one is fresh.”

Water mark: sunset over the lake. A sense of calm pervades. Photograph: Maria Sundvall/Getty Images/EyeEm

But that turns out to be the last good news. In search of jam, I find a pickled herring floating in every jar. My Stockholm friends had always said the safest place to eat would be Ikea.

The Haparanda locals are still proud of their Ikea, the planet’s northernmost blue box. Built in 2006 to attract Russians and Finns, it is another alien presence, an intergalactic dock to the bus station’s spaceship. It must be packed at some point – each year, they say, two million shoppers tramp through – but now the car park is empty.

Trade in the town was brisker in the first world war. Back then, unending Swedish trains brought rubber, British boots and broadcloth, jute sacks marked for Tokyo, and oranges for old Peking. The border town was flooded by a sea of crates, a shadow-city with its own dark streets and dead-end squares. No bureaucrat could possibly keep pace, still less search every crate for contraband. By day, the bars in town were full of men in cheap, ill-fitting suits; at night the action shifted to the forest, where fortunes could be made from army-issue guns and fuses, German pharmaceutical supplies.

Another country: the Tornio river follows the border between Sweden and Finland. Photograph: Alamy

Strangers could disappear in moments in those primal woods. Bad debts were settled with a bullet in the dark; it would have been a simple matter to have dealt with Lenin by the same technique. The British even sent an officer to see to it. The man did what he thought he could. He strip-searched Lenin and he questioned him, but in the end he sent the Russian on his way. Lenin went on to create the first ever Communist superpower. The British officer received an OBE.

Haparanda is still a tricky place to leave. I plan to catch an early bus that should connect to the Finnish railway at Kemi. At least, I think that I have got that right.

The bus station displays two clocks, one set to Swedish time and one (an hour ahead) to Finnish. My heart stops for a second; I just can’t afford to miss this one. But the bus station ticket office has a man inside: so early, so efficient, such a great relief. He tells me that he has no tickets for sale. “Kemi is in Finland,” he says. “This office is in Sweden. For Finland, you must use the room next door.”

Essentials

Take the overnight train from Stockholm to Haparanda – tickets in October start at £94 for a single and the journey takes 17 hours (sj.se). Accommodation ranges from hostels to the grand Haparanda Stadshotell, where rooms start at £112 (haparandastadshotell.se)

Lenin on the Train by Catherine Merridale is published by Allen Lane on 6 October, priced at £25. To order a copy for £20.50, visit bookshop.theguardian.com